College of William and Mary working to build Virginia hip-hop music archive

Virginia hip-hop is the subject of a new collection at the William and Mary library. In this photo, members of Ace Boone Clik from Hampton, along with 4-year-old Zavier Wright, perform onstage at King-Lincoln Park in Newport News.

When it comes to hip-hop music, Virginia has a proud history that's still being written. A team of historians and archivists in Williamsburg are working to document that story as told in beats and rhymes, mixtapes and turntables.

Something called the William and Mary Hip Hop Collection is currently being compiled by PhD candidate Kevin Kosanovich for the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary's Swem Library.

It's intended to be the most comprehensive collection dedicated to Virginia’s hip-hop culture and history, covering the era of 1980s to present. Home-grown giants of the genre such as Missy Elliott and The Neptunes will be represented, but so will grass-roots artists who still live and work in the 757.

Amy C. Schindler, university archivist, said colleges across the nation have started to collect key cultural artifacts related to rap music. The movement has been gathering momentum for the last six or seven years, she said.

Kosanovich, who is researching and writing about the emergence of hip-hop culture, wanted to start collecting field interviews, recordings and photos. "We decided we're going to do this," Schindler said. "We gave him the green light to start talking to people."

Over five months, Kosanovich has conducted about 30 interviews and he's looking for more subjects and materials.